Wednesday, February 15, 2017

But, We Are Supposed to "Trust Science"

A decade later, comprehensive smoking bans have proliferated globally. And now that the evidence has had time to accumulate, it’s also become clear that the extravagant promises made by anti-smoking groups—that implementing bans would bring about extraordinary improvements in cardiac health—never materialized.

Yet, we are supposed to completely overturn the world economy and spend $19 Trillion (yes, trillion) dollars on less-reliable energy sources because of scientific studies of the same quality as the one in Helena.

I think a point that is missed in this blog post is that science is fluid. Science is hypothesized, proven and/or disproven, repeatedly and in succession until a consensus answer is reached. However, it is always acknowledged that there is never a set truth. Science is always up for debate. If a "fact" is disproven, then we go back to the table and see where previous tests might have gone wrong. There is no absolute truth and scientists are the first to admit that. So it turns out that studies relating smoking bans to cardiac health had faults. Great! Lets build on the errors and make the answers more robust. The only people that suffer from improved science are ... no one.

Well, as someone who was around in an Eastern USA larger city when public smoking bans were being debated and eventually passed, I can assure you that the "science" had nothing to do with the bans being passed.

Sure it was nice to hear the various health arguments, but just like your supermarket having 50 different choices for ketchup, saying one flavor of ketchup won the debate is ludicrous. The Tobacco Company Industrial Complex Lobbyists were out in full force and argued with green money against the health claims.

What won the day was the fact that over 2/3 of the population at the time (now up to 3/4) just didn't like the filth and stench of cigarette smoke as they were eating out. Somehow we were organized and vocal enough that the local politicians feared for our votes more than losing lobbyists cash.

At the time bars and restaurants feared the smoking bans would hurt their business. What turned out was their business improved because a lot of the 2/3 of the population came to their restaurants instead of eating elsewhere.

Another amusing topic of that article is that smokers are "oppressed" because they are forced to consider the wishes of the 3/4 of the population of non smokers. Are parents repressing their children when they teach manners and consideration of others?

I believe you will find barkeepers and restaurant owners would rather keep the extra non smoking patrons.